The importance of a guy like Jay McClement

Adrian Dater had me, and superfan Dario on his podcast tonight (hey what a coincidence that I'm blogging in the first time in 2 months. And by Coincidence I realized that, no I actually enjoy this and should do it again). One thing we touched on was the Erik Johnson/Jay McClement for Chris Stewart/Kevin Shattenkirk trade, and we touched on Jay McClement briefly, but I wanted to go over how valuable he (and players like him) are to teams.(All stats taken from Behind the Net)Jay McClement makes the avs a better team. He is so solid in his own zone (along with Daniel Winnik) that it allows the Avs to move Ryan O'Reilly up to the second line, and this season (as opposed to seasons past) he is finally getting to start shifts in the offensive zone. It's no wonder his point totals are rising. Here's an example: His first two seasons in the league, Ryan O'Reilly's OZone % (his ratio of starts in his own zone as compared to the offensive one) was 43%, and 40.5%. Not surprisingly, O'Reilly in...